


Softly, With Teeth

by orphan_account



Category: One Piece
Genre: Implied Violence, M/M, Smoking, Thoughts of Violence, Unresolved Sexual Tension, preslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 22:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7455486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doflamingo looks at Rocinante and his smile is perhaps a little too sharp, a little too hungry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Softly, With Teeth

Doflamingo orders nobody to disturb him and Rocinante as they go over plans to overrun a small port island. His Executives give him a look of apprehension before exiting out of the ships’s study without protest, having already argued for the last hour or so.

Rocinante watches them go, glancing at Doflamingo before approaching the table with cautious steps.

It's been almost three days since they met each again after fourteen years.

Rocinante, for his part, is careful and delicate with his answers and actions. He is on thin ground, even if he has Doflamingo’s promise that he can leave if he wants to when his commission is over.

Doflamingo finds that his cute little brother is a grown stranger before him.

The silence is thick between them, the air so mute that Doflamingo wants to cut into Rocinante just a little to see if his little brother has truly lost his voice. It’s something unexpectedly bitter, reading Rocinante’s notes, the handwriting loose and the words terse.

Rocinante ignores Doflamingo’s stare and examines the map on the table again.

The concentration on his face, eyes sharp and lips pressed into a thin line as he considers the geography of the island Doflamingo wants to raid, is both familiar and unfamiliar. The stubborn set of his shoulders is something Doflamingo recognizes form the memory of smaller ones set squared and ready. But once where there had been a hesitant tremor there is now a restlessness, Rocinante fiddling a dip-pen quill between his fingers.

“Having second thoughts?” Doflamingo asks, keeping his voice even as Rocinante glances up at him briefly.

Rocinante shakes his head, grabbing the notepad near him to write simply, _Why do you really want the port?_

“I have business with a man there,” Doflamingo replies darkly.

Rocinante considers him before asking, _As an example to others like him?_

Doflamingo’s grin is sharp and unpleasant. “The nature of things.”

His returned little brother shrugs before considering the map again, fingers twisting the feather of the quill until it frays.

“Is there something,” Doflamingo says, reaching to lay his hand on top of Rocinante’s, “that’s irritating you?”

Rocinante slips out of his grasp delicately, writing with quick strokes, _No. I want cigarettes._

Doflamingo looks up from the note in surprise. His little brother’s face is serious, eyes turning sharp and defiant as he doesn’t say anything.

“When did you start smoking?” Doflamingo asks.

Rocinante shrugs, writes, _Need cigarettes._

“I’ll tell Baby 5 to get them for you.”

Rocinante shakes his head. _I wanna stretch my legs. There’s a shop near_.

“I’ll go with you.”

Rocinante gives him an apprehensive look, the tilt of his eyes and the scrunch of his nose familiar.

Doflamingo’s grin is tight as he walks towards the door to grab his feather coat from the hanger. “C’mon then, we’ll go and get some.”

Diamante gives Rocinante a dirty look that Doflamingo ignores as the Executive leans down to listen to him. “I’m going out for a while so watch the ship.”

The sun is setting into the sea when they step onto the port, the wind cold and salty.

Doflamingo lets Rocinante lead the way, catching him when he stumbles. His grip is harsh as pulls his little brother back upright.

“Still so clumsy,” he teases, letting go when Rocinante tugs away with a huff.

The shop is fairly near, small and fitted between two other stores in some back alley.

There’s no bell when they walk in, but a short man with a bald head and a graying beard comes to the front counter and smiles when he sees Rocinante. “Was wondern’ if you’d be back,” he says, his common round and friendly. His smile freezes when he sees Doflamingo, his eyes going fearful as he stutters. “Getcha anything?”

“Cigarettes,” Doflamingo says for Rocinante. “Whatever kind he takes.”

The man hurries to grab a brand off the shelf, a carton of the cheapest ones in white boxes with a scarlet sun stamped onto the front. Doflamingo frowns, opening his mouth to tell him those aren’t the ones, but Rocinante nods and smiles reassuringly at the man.

Rocinante hands the man a handful of Beli coins. Doflamingo wonders where he got them when they had taken almost all of his possessions before interrogating him.

He grabs the carton and walks back, ripping the package open with eagerness as they head back to the ship.

Doflamingo watches Rocinante place a cigarette between his lips, producing a box of matches from his front pocket. He takes a deep drag, his eyes closing as his shoulders relax, expression going blissful for a moment as he exhales the smoke.

“That good?” Doflamingo asks as Rocinante takes another drag. His little brother offers him the cigarette, but he shakes his head.

They walk in silence as Rocinante smokes, tension slipping off him as he fills his lungs greedily.

Doflamingo watches, and wonders again if this is really the little brother that he had lost. But he had known it before having him dragged struggling onto the ship, before he had answered their questions under a promise of pain, before he had written Doflamingo’s name in the twisting, serpentine alphabet they had learned together as children in a land above the world.

He had known it was Rocinante the first time he had seen him again, face all bloody and looking so much like their parents that Doflamingo’s breath hitched. He had felt acid tickle the back of his throat, his strings thrumming as his little brother looked back at him with surprise and horror.

The baby fat is gone, the easy smiles and tears, the reaching, shaking hand looking to hold his, the sweet voice gone hoarse and quiet—they had all disappeared and left behind a stranger with a face like their mother's, (like their father's).

Doflamingo’s hands itches—he wonders if he can make Rocinante into his own again, carve up the sides of his cheeks until there is nothing but him in his little brother’s skin and bones.

Rocinante looks at him as they reach the port, placing his second cigarette between his lips as Doflamingo meets his gaze.

“What?”

Rocinante shrugs, pulls out the notepad from his back pocket and a pen from the other. _You’re staring._

Doflamingo stops and Rocinante does, too, face inching towards worry.

“You’ve changed,” Doflamingo replies.

His little brother writes sharply with a pointed look, _And you’re perfectly the same._

Doflamingo’s smile is sharper than he intends to let happen. “Am I a stranger to you, Roci?”

Rocinante stares at him in the light of a drowning sun, streaking him red-pink. Doflamingo steps closer, takes the unlit cigarette from his lips.

“What have you become, I wonder?” Doflamingo says, staring back before dropping his gaze to Rocinante’s parted lips. His voice drops, low and soft between them, “Do you still matter to me? If I peel back your skin will I find the little brother that was so dear?”

Rocinante takes a step back, almost stumbling before writing furiously, _What do you want from me, Doffy?_

“I don’t know yet,” Doflamingo admits, something gleeful spreading into his lungs, “but I was thinking that I wouldn’t mind seeing you in my colors.”

Rocinante eyes sharpen, hand moving to write out, no doubt, a rebuff.

Doflamingo places his hand on top of his to stop him, putting the cigarette back between his lips. He takes the box of matches from the other’s front pocket, striking one to light the end. He smiles as Rocinante sucks in a sharp drag.

“Let’s go back onto the ship, Roci,” Doflamingo says, turning to lead the way. His little brother, delightfully, follows close behind him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops?? This was originally just going to be a gen/pre-flash set of prompted drabbles for Corazon Week, but I'm, apparently really bad at sticking to the rules |||OTZ


End file.
